


Here and Now

by LadyRhiyana



Series: Season 8 reaction ficlets [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Good things sometimes happen to good people, Spoilers for episode 8.02, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, last night on earth sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 16:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18595282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyRhiyana/pseuds/LadyRhiyana
Summary: There are men she could have, if she chose. Honourable men. Sturdy, practical men, kind in their own gruff way, gentle as they know how to be.She doesn’t want them."Any knight can make another knight," he’d said, as if it was the easiest thing in the world. But no one else would ever have thought of it. No one else would ever have done it: only him.**[Or: After the fire dies down and the others start to drift away, Brienne seizes the day.]





	Here and Now

**Author's Note:**

> So, this little ficlet was inspired by my overflowing feelings about episode 8x02 and thus is more about atmosphere and intimacy than anything approaching real plot. Please enjoy.

Later, much later, as the fire dies down and the echoes of Pod’s haunting song fade, she makes her way back to her small, solitary chamber. 

She’s not surprised to hear soft footsteps behind her, the shushing of a cloak on the floor, the muted clink of armour and sheathed sword. She doesn’t turn. She knows who it is.

“Brienne,” he says. 

Her hand pauses on the heavy iron doorknob. 

She knows, now, who she is and what she’s worth. She knows that there are men she could have, if she chose. 

Honourable men, their oaths held sacred and their worth unquestioned. Sturdy, practical men, kind in their own gruff way, gentle as they know how to be. 

Such are the men of the North, who judge a woman’s worth not by her beauty but by her character and her deeds. 

She doesn’t want them. 

Their smiles don’t cut like knives. They have no _teeth_.

Finally, she turns to face him. 

_Any knight can make another knight,_ he’d said, as if it was the easiest thing in the world. But no one else would ever have thought of it. No one else would ever have done it: only him. 

“Jaime,” she says. And then, gathering all her courage, “Will you come in?”

** 

She doesn’t quite know what to say. She’s never done this before. It seems ridiculous that after all the danger she’s known, this is the moment she finally turns craven. 

For so long she’d thought him out of her reach. He’d tried to kill her and then he’d saved her. He’d told her things he’d never spoken of to anyone else, and then he’d sent her away. He slipped through her fingers time and time again, returning to the Kingsguard, to his family, to his cruel, beautiful sister. 

There is a child, they say. Brienne doesn’t know if she can hold him, even now. 

But if this is to be their last night on earth, she wants to at least try.

“I,” she begins – and that’s when her courage deserts her. She stands before him, mute, her eyes wide and beseeching. 

Ser Jaime smiles ruefully and puts his hand on her cheek. “Brienne,” he says, drawing her closer, so close that she can feel the warmth of him, smell the wine on his breath and the steel and leather of his armour. She puts her hand on his cheek in turn, feels the soft rasp of his beard, the shift in his expression as his smile dies away. 

“I’ve never been with any woman but Cersei,” he says simply. “This is new to me, too.”

There are streaks of silver in his golden hair and beard. Crows’ feet fan out from the corners of his green eyes, lines of suffering and experience. 

When she kisses him, his mouth is warm and sweet, his lips curving into a smile. 

** 

Afterwards they lie pressed close together in her small bed, the furs drawn over them as their bodies slowly cool. Brienne savours the warm intimacy of lying skin to skin, feeling the warm, muscular vitality of his body, his heart beating strong against her breast. 

Slowly, absently she runs her hand through his hair, scratching a little, and he hums low in his throat and arches into it. 

“I never got to hold Renly while he was alive,” she says, low and musing, stroking her hand over his shoulders. “If I could speak to the girl I was then, tell her –” She pauses. What would she tell that proud, lonely girl, so prickly and insecure? 

One day, you will be proud to be knighted by the most infamous oathbreaker in the Seven Kingdoms. One day, you will invite a notorious sister-fucker to your bed. 

One day, you will find a man – not a good man, or a gentle man, nor even a kind man – who will accept you for who you are. 

Fuck Septa Roelle and everything she ever said. 

**

They’ve spoken no vows, exchanged no cloaks, made no promises or declarations of love. But as they lie face to face, body to body, staring into each others’ eyes in the dim firelight, she knows the most important thing. 

Here, and now, he is hers and hers alone.


End file.
